Chavez Angrily Denies Reports Of A Gas Leak Days Before The Lethal Refinery Explosion

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan
president, has angrily denied claims that early warning systems
at the country's main Amuay oil refinery failed as residents
reported there had been a strong smell of gas before Saturday's
deadly explosion but no action was taken.

Three refining tanks exploded at Venezuela's biggest refinery
complex, killing 41 people and injuring more than 80 people in
the Opec nation's worst ever oil accident.

Officials at the 645,000 barrel-per-day Amuay refinery were on
Sunday trying to stop the fire still raging at two storage tanks
from spreading to other nearby fuel storage facilities. That
would delay Amuay's restart beyond the current estimate of two
days.

More than 200 homes were reported damaged by the shockwave. Some
were across the street from the refinery, which is on a peninsula
in the Caribbean Sea in western Venezuela.

Puddles of petroleum mixed with water covered roads in the area.
The victims from Saturday's blast included 18 national guard
troops and 15 civilians; six remained unidentified. On Sunday two
of the dozens of people wounded died in hospital, a national
guard general told reporters.

Chávez, who visited the scene on Sunday, said there were still
several people unaccounted for, as well as at least 35 people
still in hospital, so the death toll could rise.

As fire continued to burn on Sunday the president angrily denied
claims that a strong smell of gas experienced by residents in the
days preceding the explosion could have indicated a possible
failure of the complex's warning system.

"What you say you heard suggests something that is practically
impossible in an installation of this kind, the largest refinery
in the world. It is completely automatized and it has thousands
of responsible workers here day and night, civilians and
military," Chávez said. "There is no way that there could have
been a gas leak during three or four days and that no one did
anything."

People living close to the refinery have spoken of a dense
fog-like cloud descending in the days before the huge explosion,
which sent a shockwave tearing through the surrounding area,
shattering shops and homes and littering the streets with debris

"The smell of gas could be normal close to a refinery, especially
on a windless day like Friday, but [this] wasn't," said Mario
Theis, who worked as operations manager in the Amuay complex for
more than 30 years. "At the first hint of a gas leak sirens
should go off and all access roads get closed. It didn't happen."

The cause of the blast has yet to be determined but with
presidential elections only six weeks away political accusations
are flying. Chávez has said that a gas leak that concentrated
into a cloud led to the explosion, while the general manager of
the Paraguana refining integrated complex comprised of the Amuay
and Cardon plants, Jesus Luongo, denied any negligence of
maintenance practices.

This accident and a large oil spill in the eastern state of
Monagas have revived allegations from industry professionals that
safety protocols and standard maintenance practices were
neglected after a general strike by the company's employees in
2002 led to the firing of more than 20,000 people.

According to Gente del Petroleo, an organization of retired oil
executives, since 2003 there have been 79 accidents in the
Paraguana refining complex, where 19 workers have died and 67
have been gravely injured.

The blast ranks as one of the deadliest oil industry accidents in
recent history, approaching the toll of the 1997 fire at
Hindustan Petroleum's Visakhapatnam refinery in India that killed
56, and topping the 2005 BP Texas City
refinery blast that killed 15 workers.

The state-owned PDVSA oil company is not only the lifeline of the
country's economy but in recent years has moved away from its
core business to operate social and housing projects for the
government on a massive scale.

"In my time there we knew what the objectives of the oil industry
were. Now PDVSA diverts its resources into politicking" said
Theis.

According to the blogger Miguel Octavio, citing PDVSA's official
2011 annual report, the Amuay refinery was scheduled to undergo
nine maintenance shutdowns but only two were conducted because of
lack of parts.

Chávez, who has called for an extensive investigation into the
cause of the explosion, suggested the reporting of the event
could be playing into the opposition's political agenda. "I
recommend to all those who claim this [lack of maintenance] not
to speculate. This all coincides with a line of opinion being
generated," he said.

On Saturday morning the energy minister, Rafael Ramirez, assured
Venezuelans there was enough fuel in store to satisfy domestic
demands and that the Amuay refinery would be operating in a
maximum of two days.

But as the flames rose up in the night sky skeptics worried that
what was already deemed a tragedy could worsen.

"The situation is not under control. They are waiting for the
fuel to extinguish itself but the neighboring [storage] sphere
could very well be heating up," said Alexis Acosta, who had to
flee the area because of the damage done to his house by the
blast. "The safety valves might not stand the pressure."